Max Finesmith was born in 1920 in Wilmington, Delaware. He grew up during the Depression. His parents emigrated from Poland. His father sold clothing door to door to support his family. His mother made the clothing for her husband to sell. His father later opened a store to support his clientele. The family lived in an apartment behind the store. The family moved to New York when Finesmith was seven years old. He was younger than his siblings. He had three brothers and one sister. Finesmith had a fairly happy childhood. Living in New York was like bedlam because they lived in a tenement. Times were difficult. His father had to close the store after ten to 15 years because he could not make a living from it. There was always plenty to eat and clothes to wear. Finesmith started working at about nine years of age. He sold newspapers on the corner for two cents each. During his school years, he worked during the summer and after school at various jobs. He worked in a bicycle shop and shoveled snow off the sidewalks. He learned the printing trade in junior high and started working in a print shop. During high school, he traveled by subway for an hour each way in order to attend a school which specialized in drafting training. After graduating high school, Finesmith got a job manufacturing rubber stamps. He worked his way up until he was running the shop. He went to Pratt Institute in the evenings to study architecture. He received a certificate, but work in that field was not readily available. After being in the rubber stamp shop in New York for over three years, he took a position in Wilmington, Delaware making rubber stamps. He had loved going to Wilmington and so he left New York for the position. He lived with his aunt and uncle in Wilmington. Before leaving New York, he registered with the draft board there. While in Wilmington, he took examinations to enter the Air Forces. He did well on the exams and petitioned New York to release him so he could enlist in the Air Forces. That request was denied and several months later in 1942, he was drafted into the Army infantry by the New York board. He was assigned to the 100th Infantry Division at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Pearl Harbor had been attacked before his entry into the service. He was working in the shop when the attacked took place. He and the rest of the shop stopped to hear President Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: President Franklin D. Roosevelt] speak to Congress. Finesmith had been following the news and was aware of the Japanese and American ongoing negotiations to avoid war. The Japanese attack went back on their indications that they did not want to go to war with the United States. Finesmith had a vague idea of the location of Pearl Harbor at the time.

Max Finesmith was drafted into the Army infantry but ended up in the Air Forces. He trained at Fort Jackson, South Carolina for the Army. It was a hellhole because it was very cold. He got along with his CO [Annotator's Note: commanding officer]. As he was completing his basic training, his transfer to the Air Forces came through. That was when his CO's attitude toward him changed. The officer did not know that Finesmith was attempting to get into another branch of the service. No longer did Finesmith receive good treatment. Duty assignments were bad. He was no longer allowed to be acting corporal. He was transferred to Nashville, Tennessee for tests and classifications with the Air Forces. The options available to him were pilot, bombardier or navigator. Finesmith wanted to become a navigator. He went to Ellington Field in Houston, Texas. He became an aviation cadet and felt like a real person. The food was good, and there was a nice town to go to when he received liberty. Some of the course work was difficult, but he passed and graduated as a cadet. He then attended navigation school in San Marcos, Texas. That instruction was tough because the emphasis was on celestial navigation. Finesmith passed that requirement with good marks and received his commission as a second lieutenant. He next went to Davis-Monthan Field [Annotator's Note: now Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona]. There, he was assigned to a B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber]. He had wanted to fly in a B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber]. Finesmith was then assigned for further training to Blythe Field in California. It was a desert. From there, he went to Oklahoma City for training in air reconnaissance and photography. Most of the class wanted to go into combat and were not interested in the courses. In 1943, it was decided that the class would be sent into combat. Orders were received for the planes to fly to Europe on their own rather than in a squadron or a flight. In Topeka, Kansas he was assigned to an aircraft. They flew to West Palm Beach, Florida and then to Trinidad and then on to Brazil. From Brazil, they flew to Dakar in Africa. They flew by themselves and only used celestial navigation and arrived on location and on time. From Dakar, they flew to Marrakesh and then on to England. They were mostly flying at night and very fatigued by the time they reached England. Finesmith attended a Passover Seder dinner in the English town soon after he arrived. There were quite a few Jewish families in the town, and he was invited to attend a ceremony. It was only the second day after his arrival. When he turned in for the night, he expected to face added training in England or Ireland. Instead, he was awoken just two hours after midnight and told to prepare himself for his first combat mission.

Max Finesmith went into the briefing for his first mission before four in the morning. The plan was to takeoff by 8:30 in the morning. The target was to be Brunswick, Germany. Upon crossing the coast of France, there would be P-47 [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft] or P-51 [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft] fighter protection for the bombers. The field was socked in by the weather at the designated takeoff time. An hour later, the flight was able to takeoff. There were hundreds of aircraft in the formation. Finesmith and his aircraft were positioned just behind the deputy lead of the formation. That was a particularly vulnerable location. Upon crossing the coast of France, no American fighter support was ever seen. As the flight crossed the German border, Luftwaffe [Annotator's Note: German Air Force] fighters began to be sighted. The antiaircraft fire increased in Germany. Finesmith was in the nose of the aircraft wearing his flak jacket and harness for his parachute. The parachute was stored in a separate package and would need to be clipped to the harness prior to bailing out. The plane began to spin. It was on fire. The bailout alarm was sounded and as Finesmith was about to jump, he realized the bombardier in the nose needed assistance. Finesmith helped him jump through the nose well of the aircraft. As Finesmith was about to jump, he realized that he had clipped his parachute on incorrectly. He had to make the adjustment. After doing so, he jumped. As he exited the spinning plane, he pulled his ripcord too fast so that the forward and downward motion of the aircraft in a dive hurt his back. When his chute finally deployed, Finesmith observed an Fw-190 [Annotator's Note: Focke Wulf Fw-190 fighter aircraft] fighter approaching him. He felt that was the end. The enemy pilot came very close to his opponent in the parachute and smiled at him. He did not fire but left instead. When Finesmith landed, it was a hard landing. He sprained his ankle and could not walk. He had landed in an agricultural field. German officers in a touring car approached him. The bomber's waist gunner came over to help Finesmith. Both Americans were placed in the car by the German officers and taken to a jail in town. The enemy officers told the Americans that the war was over for them.

Max Finesmith did not have time to think after his bomber had been fatally damaged. Everything was happening so fast before he was captured. As the aircraft was spinning and he anticipated bailing out, he remembered that he had an H on his dog tags which indicated that he was of Jewish ancestry. The Germans were known to kill Jewish prisoners in the concentration camps. Finesmith feared being captured but he was only verbally, not physically, abused. He went into jail in Celle, Germany. The bomber's waist gunner and Finesmith stayed in the jail overnight. German soldiers were assigned to escort them to POW [Annotator's Note: prisoners of war] camp. The civilians were angry at the uniformed American airmen, but the enemy soldiers protected their charges. The train transporting them was very crowded. The German guards made the passengers give the POWs their seats because it was easier to watch the sitting rather than standing Americans. The passengers wanted to kill the Americans. This was in the northern part of Germany. They were transported by train to Frankfurt am Main in the southern part of Germany. They were placed in a classification camp with thousands of American prisoners there. The POWs were held there for interrogation and classification. Finesmith was placed in solitary confinement. About once an hour, he would be pulled out for questioning by a German officer or interrogator. He only provided his name, rank and serial number. He was told that he would be shot as a spy if he did not answer the questions. Finesmith thought that he would suffer the worst as a result. After a few days of this, the interrogator began to tell Finesmith details and facts about his personal life. The German intelligence was quite good in determining personal details of their captives. Ultimately, Finesmith was assigned to a POW camp. He was given a Red Cross parcel containing some necessities then was transported in a cattle car similar to the ones used to move concentration camp inmates. The men had to stand most of the time. They were bombed on occasion. Upon reaching Stalag Luft 1, he saw that it was an all air force camp holding American, British, and Canadian officers. They felt protected by their CO [Annotator's Note: commanding officer] who was a colonel. There were three compounds in the camp that were separated and inaccessible to the others. Finesmith never saw his crewmates again although he heard they had gotten out. The POW camp was rough. For the first six months, the men received Red Cross parcels. The men cooked their own food that they grew. The Germans provided three slices of bread a day that was made using sawdust. There were 12 men to a room with each barracks having a stove for cooking. The bunks were lined with straw. They were two to three tiers high. The Americans tried to grow their own food using seeds given to them by the Germans. The Germans would trade information and other items to the Americans for the cigarettes from the Red Cross parcels. After the Red Cross parcels stopped, Finesmith lost about 50 pounds. The main thoughts concerned the ever present hunger and food. Tunnels for escape were attempted, but the Germans discovered them by using dogs. The Americans initially would cheer the Allied bombers as they flew overhead to bomb Germany. Eventually, the guards prevented them from going outside as the aircraft passed overhead. One Canadian officer attempted to do so after the curfew was established and was killed. Life in the camp was sometimes bearable but sometimes it was not. The POWs heard about the attempt on Hitler's [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] life. The invasion was known about. Toward the end of the war in May [Annotator's Note: May 1945], the Russians came in. Before the arrival of the Russians, the Jewish prisoners were separated from the other POWs. It was thought that they would be killed. The guards watching the POWs changed to youngsters and old men. The Russian tanks arrived and liberated the POWs. The inmates were given food. The Allied commander of the camp wanted to free the POWs by air. The Russians insisted that the POWs travel to Odessa. This would have been a very long journey. The commander finally got some B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] to fly out the freed inmates. Some inmates left on their own. Finesmith observed a German mother outside the camp who had killed her baby to prevent it from being murdered by the Russians. Finesmith was transported to Camp Lucky Strike in Le Havre [Annotator's Note: Le Havre, France]. While at Camp Lucky Strike, Finesmith met up with his brother who was in the engineers. His sibling had helped build the camp. Finesmith did not even know his brother was in the service. It was a fantastic reunion. His brother had to leave but gave Finesmith a camera to take color movies of his experiences. Finesmith did so and still has some of the movies on tape. Eisenhower [Annotator's Note: Supreme Allied Commander, later President of the United States, US Army General Dwight D. Eisenhower] entered the camp after Finesmith had been there for two weeks. He promised to get them out of the camp and he did so. Finesmith set out on the voyage home aboard the SS Admiral Mayo [Annotator's Note: USS Admiral H. T. Mayo (AP-125)] a week later. The accommodations were not too good. Finesmith slept in one of the four tier bunks. He was not lucky enough to get a stateroom. He met Victor Mature, the actor, onboard. There was a Glenn Miller trained band onboard. Finesmith was very seasick on the trip. Upon arrival in Boston, there was a nice, though abbreviated, homecoming. He was taken by train to Fort Dix where he was given leave for one month. He had enough points to be discharged and left the service in September or October 1945. He was verbally mistreated by the Germans in the POW camps. The biggest mistreatment was extended roll calls and no food. The Red Cross parcels were given to the POWs at first but then stored in warehouses and not given to the prisoners. After two months under German guard, Finesmith was allowed to write home. Two letters and one postcard were allowed every month. The mail was censored. He still has telegrams that his family received. That includes the one indicating that he was missing in action. He realized he was a free man when the Russians came into the camp. He felt he was reborn a second time. The first time was when he came down in the parachute and the 190 [Annotator's Note: Focke Wulf Fw-190 fighter aircraft] did not kill him. He felt so helpless then.

Max Finesmith had a wonderful reunion with his family upon his return to the United States. A brother met him while he was en route back to New York. Before separation, he was given physical and mental examinations. He foolishly got married too soon despite warnings not to do so. He was in Camp Lucky Strike for about a month. Finesmith went to Paris one day while he was at Lucky Strike. He was not given money before returning to the United States. There were no additional camps he went to while in Europe or the United States for any further examinations or recovery.

Max Finesmith was a disciplined young man before his service. He worked through the Depression and at one time his family was on relief. The service was a benefit to him because it allowed him to travel the country and meet all kinds of people. He was not necessarily pleased with the officers he met in infantry basic training. Being sick one day, he went to check in at sick call. The doctor officer told him to return to his barrack and lay down to rest. The sergeant, seeing Finesmith resting, told him to get back to duty. A verbal fight ensued and the sergeant left Finesmith alone. There was only one time in the POW [Annotator's Note: prisoners of war] camp when Finesmith considered giving up or that he would not survive it. That occurred when Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] issued the order to separate the Jewish POWs. That was the only time. Aside from that, he felt he would be alright. His service experience proved to him that there were certain things he could do that he did not know he could. He feared hand to hand combat. There was fear, but he felt the work had to be done so he would do it to the best of his ability. The foremost positive result for the United States' experience in the war was the defeat of Hitler before he achieved the atomic bomb. Hitler was working on that goal. He might have been successful. It is surprising how the United States was able to build up its war production in such a short time. We should not be giving up on our automobile industry today. The Ford Company produced many of the bombers in the war. The naval shipyards are disappearing today. Finesmith suffered but survived the war. The starvation taught him not to waste food. There are people starving today. The work of The National WWII Museum is very important. There is a fantastic and realistic museum in London also. [Annotator's Note: There are several minutes of off camera monologue that is largely inaudible.] As a young man, Finesmith read all the Horatio Alger novels about how hard work can yield success through determination.